In recent years, a large amount of data are being handled by computers (computer devices) with the advent of an advanced information society, and numerous computers are often installed in one room for the purpose of collective management in a facility such as a data center. Under this circumstance, the computers generate a large amount of heat which may lead to erroneous operations or failures. Accordingly, a measure for cooling the computers is used. For this reason, a data center is usually designed to let the heat generated in the computers out of the computers using fans (air blowers), and to adjust the temperature in the room using an air-conditioning machine (an air conditioner).
In the meantime, the amount of heat generated by the computers fluctuates depending on operating conditions of the computers. A conceivable option for reliably preventing erroneous operations or failures of the computers attributed to the heat is to use an air-conditioning machine, which has a cooling capacity corresponding to a sum of maximum amounts of heat generated by all the computers in a computer room. However, an air-conditioning machine with such a large cooling capacity generally has large power consumption, which is undesirable in terms of energy conservation. In this regard, efficient operation of an air-conditioning facility inclusive of an air-conditioning machine is preferred.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2010-32174
A conventional data center is designed to manage the air temperature while circulating the air within a computer room. As a consequence, no matter how efficiently the air-conditioning facility is operated, the air-conditioning facility consumes at least the electric power corresponding to the amount of heat generated by all the computers in the computer room, and may be unable to achieve further reduction of the above-mentioned power consumption.